"You can't do this to me! I'm an American"
Berkeley has called for ouster of the Marine Corps from "its borders".
The council also voted to allow members of Code Pink, the protest group that helped organize Friday's blockade, to park at a designated space in front of the recruiting office every Wednesday afternoon and operate a loudspeaker. The council's action apparently made Berkeley the first city in the nation to call for the ouster of a military recruiting station from its borders. ...
Conservative blogs blasted the council and Berkeley in general all day with comments such as one on "Gathering of Eagles": "These cretins disgust me."
Members of the council who voted to condemn the Marine Corps station were unbowed.
"I guess they've never heard of free speech," Councilwoman Dona Spring said. "I've had a lot of nasty phone messages today, threatening me with things like saying, 'I'll take you out.' But they can go ahead. I don't feel scared."
Code Pink said it has begun to circulate a petition calling for a Berkeley ballot measure that would make it more difficult to open and operate recruiting stations. The measure would be modeled after anti-pornography laws, organizers said, mandating that - like porn shops - new recruiting offices be subject to public hearings before they would be allowed to locate near homes or schools.
Zombietime provides a little cultural backgrounder here (Warning: graphic in a bizarre way). Although Councilman Dona Spring likes to characterize the situation in terms of "free speech", it is also an example of the "free rider" phenomenon. As Wikipedia notes "a common example of a free rider problem is defense spending: no one person can be excluded from being defended by a state's military forces, and thus free riders may refuse or avoid paying for being defended, even though they are still as well guarded as those who contribute to the state's efforts." Therefore, despite the fact that Berkeley wants the Marine Corps removed from "its borders" there is no apparent interest in removing Berkeley's "borders" from the protection of the Marine Corps. If, for example, time-traveling Nazis should show up on Shattuck Avenue, the very same persons who are outraged at the existence of the Marine Corps would demand their protection from them. And they would get it.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/02/2008 07:45:00 AM
46 Comments:
It would be nice if young men in California (insofar as such exist) who are inclined to join the Marines would make a point of driving from where they are specifically to Berkley to sign up. It might even be interesting for other recruitment offices in the state to quietly send them there.
And it would be VERY interesting to watch such men, excercising their constitutional rights of speech and association, try to be stopped from doing so by these craven red-fascist twits.
Reminds me of Governor George Wallace standing in the doorway in 1963 to block black students from entering Alabama's state university.
It will work just as well also.
If the Governator and GWB had any cookies they would cut off any state or Federal funds to Berkeley, and block traffic on all roads and bridges going into Berkeley.
Code Pink and the other Berkeley clowns have long lost their entertainment value.
Here's how I positioned this in my head to determine "right" vs. "wrong."
Let's say that next door is the local "jewelry exchange." Suddenly, an armed man runs into the exchange and steals lots of stuff from the people in their and tries to take some hostages.
Who is more likely to come to the defense of ALL of the people in this situation? Old lady with guitar and hippy rags on her body, or a Marine office full of to-be recruits?
Berkley, you are wrong. Mayor, you are wrong. California, you are wrong.
I loathe you more than words can tell.
"Berkley, you are wrong. Mayor, you are wrong. California, you are wrong.
I loathe you more than words can tell."
Hey, Northern California keeps threatening to secede from Southern California. Believe me, most of Southern California would welcome it. They are a national embarrassment.
Another failure of democracy, really. The Berkeley city councillors want to run US defence policy, while the US President wants to run the local school system in Berkeley. What a mess!
As a careful perusal of the photos linked in the post will show, these folks don't agree on much amongst themselves.
Bush hatred, or whatever the next version is, is the only thing that keeps them together and keeps them in power, even in a place like Berkeley. Hence much of the stridency and acting out. It's a message they need to send to each other, rather than a message for the rest of us.
The clerks in Brattleboro Vermont are taken aback by the outraged reaction of the outside world over Vermont's threat to arrest Bush and Cheney. Government employees in Vermont are even claiming to be afeared for their lives because of "threats" they have received.
I wonder if there is no feedback to Berkeley from the outside world, and if so how they manage to stay immune to it.
Back in the days of civil rights protests, if the local law enforcement types wouldn't do anything about flagrant violations of the law, then the Attorney General of the United States of America would send in federal troops and marshals to enforce those laws.
It seems to me that if the Mayor of Berkeley *and* the Chief of Police of Berkeley won't enforce trespassing and riot laws in that city, and if the Marines within that business are in danger from a bunch of lunatics who are obviously off their medications, then this would be an excellent opportunity for our new Attorney General to take a break from deflecting questions about waterboarding and send in some Federal troops to act in the name of the Federal government and the laws of the country.
Then when they get through paddling the Code Pink loons, they can swing down to San Diego and give the Border Patrol a hand for a while.
Wonder how Code Pink would've liked WWII's Santo Tomas prison camp in EOJ-occupied Manila?
If "not much" (tho the women prisoners DID come out stylishly anorexic-looking), then they can thank the Marines (and Army).
What kind of moron picks a fight with the Marines?
I love the irony of this theorem: if Berkely and Vermont were taken into dhimminitude, then the heads of their leaders would be the first to fall and wholesale slaughter would ensue.
Their best protection is those Marines who are over THERE protecting them. If they were not protecting us, they would not go.
Long live USMC!
Salaam eleikum Y'all!
druu222 said: "It would be nice if young men in California (insofar as such exist) "
tckurd said: "I loathe you more than words can tell."
Ya know you guys (gals?) really to relax. I've lived in California for 50 years and am definitely NOT a moonbat.
It's pretty irritating to lumped in with what is an extremely small minority in a state of over 32 million.
California gets a somewhat well deserved rap as being ultra liberal, but what we're really talking about is the coastal corridoro from LA to North of San Francisco. If you drive east for 30 miles or south of LA to the border it's a completely demographic.
I live in San Diego and I can tell you that it's a fairly conservative city.
So try not to make these huge sweeping generalizations okay.
"Bush hatred, or whatever the next version is, is the only thing that keeps them together and keeps them in power"
Hell, in power? These people are powerlessness, mirth, and misery in equal measure. When everything is relative it is hard to find common purpose in anything. They will be out in force to protest the next administration, or the Republicans in the senate and congress. It really doesn't matter... they'll be out.
"Government employees in Vermont are even claiming to be afeared for their lives because of "threats" they have received.
"
Their concerns couched in the defense of 'free speech' no less. Will ironies never cease?
There's some value in examining Annoymouse's theme a little further:
If the doctrine of "Free Speech" protects the idiots in Brattleboro and Berkeley from prosecution for their threats and calls for violence against duly elected government officials, that same principle should protect other citizens from prosecution for their calls for violence against the human scum in Brattleboro and Berkeley.
Reminds me of Governor George Wallace standing in the doorway in 1963 to block black students from entering Alabama's state university.
And yet strangely, your conservative predecessors were not as outraged about that one. Why is that exactly?
Do you mean my Democratic Party predecessors? Like Lyndon Baines Johnson, who blocked civil rights legislation when he was senate majority leader during the Eisenhower administration.
It's pretty irritating to lumped in with what is an extremely small minority in a state of over 32 million.
Victor Davis Hanson is Californian. His presence makes up for Sean Penn and Susan Saradon.
Maybe the Marine and Navy installations around San Diego counterbalance the Code Pinkers.
My definition of courage is one who is willing to stand in harms way in order to defend liberty or innocent life. The U.S. Marine Corps is composed of a great many courageous people who meet this definition. Many U.S. Marines have died to defend our God-given freedom. How many from Code Pink have died defending American life and liberty? None. Until they begin to lay down their lives to defend the innocent lives of others, and to defend our God-given liberty from terrorists and tyrants, they will continue to be cowards.
Berkeley needs some urban renewal...maybe with siege guns.
And yet strangely, your conservative predecessors were not as outraged about that one. Why is that exactly?
One of the ironies of the Civil Rights movement is that it has become its myth rather than its reality. How many remember that George Wallace was a Democrat who blocked the admission of two black students? Wikipedia notes that even that may have been a form of pandering. "However, there is evidence that the entire encounter was partially or wholly coordinated with the Kennedy administration to allow Wallace to save face with Alabama voters".
It's also forgotten that that the Civil Rights Act was hardly a partisan affair. The vote totals of the Civil Rights Act are as follows:
The original House version:
* Democratic Party: 164-96 (64%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
The Senate version:
* Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:
* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 186-35 (80%-20%)
Lastly and most to the point, the US military was desegregated much earlier than general civilian society and was used in the 1950s and 1960s to enforce landmark decisions. For example, Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne to escort 9 black students, known as the "Little Rock
High" past crowds which blocked them in 1954.
One institution in US society in which minorities have excelled is the military. In fact, the Left routinely sneers that the military has so many non-whites because "it's all they can recruit" and that they want to use non-whites as cannon-fodder. But consider who the sneering often comes from the irony is even greater. The Marine Corps may be more "rainbow" than Code Pink.
And it may be pertinent to recall that Abrham Lincoln founded the Republican Party.
Many hands have built the edifice of human freedom, each picking up the thread from earlier generation. The three hundred at the Gates of Fire; the men on Bunker Hill; the 54th Massachusetts; Gandhi fasting in India; Martin Luther King; the 101st at Little Rock and men today in Anbar. And I wonder where in that parade in the history of freedom Code Pink would fit? If they chain themselves to the Marine Recruiting station it might perhaps be to catch, by some shifting of the airs, a reflection of the glory to which they themselves can never attain.
Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina is trying to revoke all federal funds going to Berkeley. Good luck to him!
Xanthhipus:
Perhaps you simply don't remember but both conservative leaders and ordinary Americans found Gov. Faubus' action unacceptable. This was so even though there was some legitimate concern over the locus of the Federal authority used.
In Berkeley, the city officials who have refused to intervene in the blocking of a Federal office (an act which is prima facie illegal)are simply malfeasant in office.
For all of human history, there have been earthquakes and tornados. For most of human history, humans could not do anything about them except grieve for the agonies of the living and the loss of the dead, and get on with the cleanup. That continued until people began to study underlying causes, applying rigorous scientific principles.
Funny how the process of taming some things begins with reducing them to numerically quantifiable scales. Consider the continuing refinements of just the scales used to describe tornados and quakes.
There are days when I contemplate the various crimes and atrocities that humans do to each other and conclude that we need a new scale of evil.
Toward a More Useful Quantification of Evil ---- The Mad Fiddler Scale ("MF")
Logarithmic Scale from 0 to 1
(... list of evil stuff, from scratching fingernails on blackboard, to recruiting for well-known pyramid sales group rhyming with "Shamway," finally ending with Making Babies with the Anti-Christ...)
...
Damn, damn, damn. I can't make this into something funny. Sometimes, humor is a good way to reduce horrific events and people to manageable proportions.
But the revulsion and disgust I feel in reading about the pigshit sucking Jihadists who would strap explosives to women with Down's Syndrome and send them to be exploded among a crowd of defenseless civilians goes beyond anything I've felt before, at least for Islam's self-styled warriors.
Well, seriously, the patient and thoughtful study of tornados by Professor Fujita and those by Charles Richter or Hiroo Kanamori of earthquakes, did far more than merely to produce new Scale systems. Their efforts resulted in a much deeper understanding of the behavior of, respectively, the atmosphere and the lithosphere, yielding up a wealth of phenomena that can be interpreted to PREDICT the course of events.
I don't know if anything is as important as is the ability to recognize patterns, such as the breathtaking similarities between historical trends in pre-WWII Japan and those of Iran since President Peanut let loose the dogs of the Ayutollah Khomeini.
In both cases, there has been a fanatical xenophobic imperative that has led to the assassination and repression of leaders --- political, cultural, and industrial --- viewed as too ready to abandon native customs and values for Western ones.
For various reasons, a lot of folks in the West are unable to see such patterns in current events, mostly because they're blinded by Leftist doctrine.
What's it going to take for them to wake up?
What do the idiots in Brattleboro and Berkeley think of the use of Down's Syndrome women as human bombs?
I'm sure those pukes will find some Leftist doctrinaire crap to justify it.
If, for example, time-traveling Nazis should show up on Shattuck Avenue, the very same persons who are outraged at the existence of the Marine Corps would demand their protection from them. And they would get it.
Yes. But as a former Marine, I would rather not. I've grown to realize these types are selfish parasites, and while I would not harm them, I will no longer defend them - just let it happen. Sorry, but America may need a culling to survive the future. Amputate the infected limb before it kills us.
Wretchard, I just pasted your 3:00 PM comment in the comments over @ Althouse. Hope you don't mind -- it was just so fitting.
What do the idiots in Brattleboro and Berkeley think of the use of Down's Syndrome women as human bombs?
I'm sure those pukes will find some Leftist doctrinaire crap to justify.
They think that it shows brilliant flexibility and enviable adaptability on the part of the militants, in reacting to the barriers that have been put in place against their previous tactics.
One might even say the terrorists are being progressive.
Wretchard -- Blacks and Latinos are somewhat under-represented in the military relevant to their population.
In combat units (and deaths) most of the people involved are white. Special Forces are almost uniformly white. For whatever reason the combat units and special forces seem to attract whites.
"Amputate the infected limb before it kills us."
Yes, Fen, we have two enemies - metaphoric diseases which are at war with American Liberty:
1) American Leftists/Socialists/Communists, and 2) Totalitarian Islamists.
Their relationship is now actually cooperative. The former is a gangrenous limb, and the latter is a cancer. Amputate the former and excise the latter in order for our God-given American Liberty to live.
What do the idiots in Brattleboro and Berkeley think of the use of Down's Syndrome women as human bombs?
I'm sure those pukes will find some Leftist doctrinaire crap to justify.
My wife worked with the mentally and physically disabled for many years. The effort to introduce, as much as possible, these folks into society, is called mainstreaming. Actually, sometimes it works really well. Whatever people might think of Wal-Mart, they cooperate to a certain degree in this effort. I suppose the sickos in Berkeley, and I share your opinion of most of them, could pick up on that.
I always find it so interesting that those who hate America and claim the government is doing this or that horrible thing against the people, seem to feel perfectly safe in performing acts that would get them injured or killed in a true totalitarian state. When I was at the Gathering of Eagles counter demonstration in DC, I remember an anti-war demonstrator calling out that Bush was a dictator. I told him that if he was, instead of the police calmly at the barricades, there would be army troops firing weapons at them. He continued his march, fully expecting that the police would not open fire on him. Likewise, Code Pink chains themselves to the doors of the office without a method of escape from those baby killing Marines inside the building. Such stupidity is amazing.
From the lofty to the inane. Maybe these wilted flower children (sorry couldn't look at the snapshots, my eyes would melt) ; maybe they're acting out their self loathing in hating these virile young Marines while their own spent putrid bodies belie the libertine lifestyle they've given themselves to.
One of their own lost bards, Phil Ochs wrote:
Aged empty people almost to their knees/
Complain about the present using memories/
Never found their pot of gold
Wrinkled hands and weary bones
Each line screams out:
You're old, you're old, you're old
When I was part of that sick crew as a young man people flashing skin was kind of gross ; now its utterly disgusting. Memo to 60's losers ,for God sake, put some clothes on, go play shuffleboard or something.
I don't know about everybody else but we didn't have a racial problem in the Marine Corps. If you weren't green you couldn't join. So we didn't have an under-representation of genetic characteristics in any of the arms, just an overabundance of the verdant. I guess you could call us the first eco-warriors.
Well said, Marzouq.
Thank you Wretchard for the short exposition on early civil rights to the ignorant.
Whiskey_199, I read that study of the racial make-up of the armed forces and the one truly underrepresented group was Asians, by a fairly constant 4-5%, with Blacks and Hispanics each being a fluid 1-2% under.
As to the Berkley and VT twits, calling them "free riders" seems a bit like dressing a pig in a tux. Leeches. Those people are unabashed leeches.
At one point, UC Berkeley student Kyrolos El Giheny walked up to the front door and tried to go inside to talk to Lund about a possible Marine career. He was unable to get past the chained protesters.
"They told me, 'No business as usual today,' " El Giheny said. "It's kind of nutty. It's really an infringement on my rights."
These two last paragraphs from this article by the San Francisco Chronicle (hardly a bastion of conservatism) make the protestors look bad. That is good.
It is best to use hippy overreaction to one's own advantage.
Perhaps the next Defense Department Authorization Bill could authorize the Department of Defense to buy People's Park from the University of California at Berkeley to convert it into a major recruitment center for not only the Marines but also other branches of the Armed Forces.
At present, People's Park functions as an open air temple to the cause of anti-war activism, a temple subsidized by the people of California. As such, converting the park into a military installation would claim strategic space for the military at the expense of old hippies.
A violent response from old hippies should be expected, just as violence from Klansmen was expected by the Freedom Riders. Although police brutality is exactly what the anti-war Left wants, police restraint would be deeply frustrating to old hippies. The very violence of the anti-war Left is one of the best ways to discredit its ideology in public.
Northern California keeps threatening to secede from Southern California.
What you don't seem to understand, though, is just where the dividing line would be if Northern California did manage to secede:
The border would run run north of SF Bay east, continuing north of Sacramento on a line ending at the Nevada border.
Most of the northern part of the state is strongly conservative, with some notable exceptions, such as the area around Eureka/Humboldt State.
Otherwise, they don't want anything to do with Sacramento and the Bay Area, much less L.A. and points south.
It'll never happen, sadly, because the population is so grossly outweighed by the urban, more southern parts of the current state.
There is, of course, dispute as to the proper name of the new state, whether it should be named Jefferson, or Really Alta California, or Baja Oregon, etc.
I will note, by the way, that while living in the S Bay area, currently four of my son's closest friends are either veterans, or currently serving and near the ends of their enlistments, including Navy, Marine, Air Force and Army NG.
What you see on the TV and read in the newspapers may be reflect reality all that well.
I can't help but reflect on the the young man defying the tanks on tinneman square whose life hangs in the balance (he might actually and willingly die for his beliefs)and the protesters in Berkeley (by there own words "not afraid"). They know only too well that no harm is going to come to them. Lets test there meddle and send them to some al-quada outpost so they can protest the use of people with Downs Syndrome as human bombs. Are you offended and outraged enough to put YOUR life on the line? The Marines and military are, everyday. As far as getting results lets just stick with the Marines.
A great take from the Libertarian perspective.
http://pith-n-vinegar.blogspot.com/2008/02/libertarian-perspective-on-berkeley-v.html
Includes this summary:
With that established, it is now clear that the Berkeley City Council has failed in its duty to protect the rights of the USMC, the landowner, and all of its citizens. The city's blatant disregard for the property rights of the USMC and its landlord, as well as its active abridgement of the right of free assocation for the USMC and the citizens of Berkeley places the Berkeley City Council clearly in the wrong. (Update, 12:03 PM: With support from the Berkeley City Council, Code Pink cut off access to the Marine Recruiting Station for 7 and 1/2 hours on Friday. More at Gateway Pundit.)
As I said before and I will ammend here to include others,
Berkeley, you are wrong. Mayor, you are wrong. Govenor, you are wrong. California, you are wrong.
I can [somewhat] grudgingly see chalk on the public sidewalk as "free speech" but, but putting the handprints on shrinkwrap on to the glass is *clearly* , undeniably infrining on the USMC's property rights, regardless of whether or not any permanent damage is done. The temporariness is utterly immaterial.
Using the exact same "reasoning", Best Buy could hang a temporary banner on the outside of Circuit City's building.
The Hubbard family of Clovis, California represent the "other" California.
It would be nice if young men in California (insofar as such exist) who are inclined to join the Marines would make a point of driving from where they are specifically to Berkley to sign up. It might even be interesting for other recruitment offices in the state to quietly send them there.
And it would be VERY interesting to watch such men, excercising their constitutional rights of speech and association, try to be stopped from doing so by these craven red-fascist twits.
Good grief, you want to force decent, healthy young men to walk past a bunch of lumpy, baggy and saggy Code Pink hags lumbering around in the buff?
Well, I guess they do want to be Marines. It would be a good first cut to weed out the ones with weak stomachs.
Does the Berkley City Council have any comment of the bombing of the Baghdad pet market, accomplished by detonating explosives attached to unsuspecting retarded women?
Robert Kaplan, in his terrific "Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts" writes of an intriguing interview he had with a Berkeley graduate - who'd admitted that she went there on an ROTC scholarship, because it was her only option.
However, she found that her ROTC status “wasn’t that bad” at Berkeley. An ensign aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Benfold, she told Kaplan about how other students - from conservative jurisdictions - would tell her, in private, how they approved of her ROTC choice.
And Kaplan writes further that there were other officers who came from Berkeley as well.
"They drew a portrait of a school where the student body was increasingly more conservative than either the faculty or the area residents."
Bingo.
Moonbatdom has found that the most recent cohort of young men and women are not automatically on "their side."
The Berkeley city council is taking this fact badly. I wonder in what other shrill moonbatty tantrums this realization has been a factor in.
Pull all armed forces from within and around Berkley. Next time there's a mudslide, earthquake, wildfire, or "man made" disaster, the citizens of Berkeley will understand the meaning of the word consequences. No National Guard. No Army Corp of Engineers. Nothing. Let's see how long their commitment to their principles actually lasts.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 02/04/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Apparently, folks at Berkeley City Hall have the courage of their convictions.
This incident illustrates how the phrase “we oppose the war but support the troops” can actually mean “we hate the troops but love federal money”.
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